Manifesto

Dear Gentleperson,

It is our great pleasure to extend to you an invitation to join us as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, animator, audience, researcher, dramaturge, critic, etc. at The Ona Hub.

Before every image is made, there is a question; and before every film is written, photographed or edited, there is an act of looking and the willingness to see.

This is where The Ona Hub begins.

Ona is a word from the Ga-Dangme language from Ghana that asks, “Have you seen it?”

It is a simple question, yet one that carries profound implications. It asks not merely whether our eyes have witnessed something, but whether we have truly perceived it, and whether we have allowed ourselves to encounter the world with attention, care, and imagination.

For us, seeing is never passive. Seeing is an act of inquiry, a commitment to knowing and the beginning of making.

The Ona Hub was founded on the belief that artistic practice is one of humanity's most powerful ways of producing knowledge. Images do more than represent reality — they shape it, preserve memory, challenge assumptions, imagine futures, and reveal what language alone cannot express. Every photograph, every frame of film, every animation, every documentary, and every audiovisual experiment is capable of asking questions that extend beyond the limits of conventional research.

We believe that artists are not only creators of objects but investigators of the human condition. Their studios are laboratories and their works are propositions about how we might understand ourselves, our histories, and the worlds we inhabit.

So we reject the notion that African creativity exists only to respond to external expectations or to satisfy inherited narratives. We believe that the continent is not merely a subject to be represented but a site from which new ideas, new aesthetics, and new forms of thinking emerge. By thinking extra-disciplinarily (Glissant), we acknowledge the limits and faults of our discipline and advocate for processes of unlearning to be able to learn something new.

Our work is therefore not simply about producing films or photographs. It is about cultivating practices of observation, experimentation, collaboration, and reflection. It is about asking better questions before seeking definitive answers, and making works that expand our capacity to see.

We understand artistic practice as both an individual pursuit and a collective responsibility. The challenges facing artists today — economic precarity, limited access to resources, fragmented networks, and unequal visibility — cannot be solved in isolation. They require institutions that nurture experimentation, encourage collaboration, and invest in long-term cultural development.

And The Ona Hub aspires to be one of those institutions.

In summary, The Ona Hub gives space to reflect on power, memory and imagination. It is a space where epistemological disobedience and delinking (Mignolo) are practised.

Our question remains simple.

Have you seen it?

Not only with your eyes, but with your mind. And not only with certainty, but with curiosity.

This is our invitation.

THE ONA HUB